Free standing sculpture of a complete human figure embodied in polychromed wood and gilded with sgraffito. Apparently, the body consists of a single block, while the hands give the impression of having been carved separately, as do the head and the base where he is seated.
Based upon its characteristics, it represents Saint Francis of Assisi,[1] being the most significant of the piece the presence of visible stigmata on both hands and the side; these allude to the age dated to 1224, when the monk withdrew to Mount Alverno to be alone, and "[...] where on the feast day of the Exaltation of the Cross, he had a vision of a floating crucifix on which Christ was nailed under the appearance of a six-winged seraphim. From the wounds of Christ radiated lines that were printed in his flesh as stigmata, that Dante calls the last seal of the five wounds”.[2]
According to Louis Reau, the sculpture reproduces one of the two most commonly used iconographies to represent the founder of the order. The author explains that the first one is what qualifies as Giottesque. [3] The second, which is associated with our image, is the so-called Tridentine, [4] and is characterized by wearing the sackcloth of the order adjusted to the waist by a rustic girdle, a cord with three knots that signify the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, the Franciscan virtues. He is holding a crucifix (no longer preserved) and also displays the stigmata on his hands, feet and side; the latter, most commonly represented by an oval slit, which is seen above the sackcloth.[5]
It is a sculptural piece that could well correspond to the first half of the seventeenth century; this to say because of the body movement, marked with the contraposto of his left leg, bent and slightly forward; while the arms, slightly apart from the torso, are rising to the height of the waist, to hold in his right hand an iconographic attribute, which now no longer is exhibited; perhaps the aforementioned crucifix or else a skull. In contrast, the left extends to the front of the viewer, slightly open, as if attempting to open his hand one finger at a time. This kind of trend in sculpture, according to the statement by Consuelo Maquivar,[6] corresponds to pieces manufactured between the last decade of the sixteenth century and early in the seventeenth century.
It has several features that allow us to deduce a subtle Andalusian influence, that is, a Spanish sculpture by a not so gifted image maker: aspects such as the work on the hair, made of wood, polychromed, carved with deep lines of great movement, which gives the appearance of undulations; the tonsure and bulky lock of hair that falls onto his forehead; the treatment of the beard, bifurcated, with a hole in the bottom, which due to the marks that show, quite possibly it was worked separately and added to the sculpture before the polychroming.
The bearded Saint Francis was the best known version in New Spain, but its history goes back to the sixteenth century, to the Venetian school of Tintoretto, Veronese and the Bassanos; to Bologna, with Ludovico Carracci, Guido Reni and Guercino, and, in Spanish art, El Greco and Zurbaran.[7] In his paintings, El Greco recreated it "[...] replacing the face lit up with the joy of the Italian art, by an ascetic mask with prominent cheekbones and sunken cheeks, consumed by the mystical ardor";[8] as if the painter intended to Hispanicize it, giving it a kind of Toledo style. Soon, this new model overtook the Iberian art of the seventeenth century, having one of its most successful sculptural representations by the Andalusian Pedro de Mena, for the Cathedral of Toledo, and leaving, of the primitive themes, only the stigmatization, but with a very different character, because it was associated with the ecstasies and raptures in the style of the Jesuit art.[9]
In contrast, in New Spain one of the most characteristic wooden sculptures of this saint is that of the former convent of San Francisco, today the Cathedral of Tlaxcala;[10] created around 1700. It is a polychrome and gilded image with a rare iconography, where you can see St. Francis kneeling with arms holding up three spheres. That model is far from the one we have here, because in ours the face is not very expressive, with downcast eyes that look toward the viewer; the mouth slightly ajar; the ears are well worked, close to the head, highlighting the work of the lobe.
His eyes are large, polychromed, in an almond-like shape, with a little more depth in the eye socket; in proportion with other features and framed by long, thin eyebrows that contribute a measured expression of rapture to the sculpture, we can also see the sunken cheeks, which give drama to the face, giving it the seriousness characteristic of Spanish sculptures of the first half of the seventeenth century. [11]He also wears a halo on his head, held by a wooden rod that s it to a floral motif of four parts, as acanthus leaves, which as well as serving as decoration, give to the halo.
Regarding clothing, we can note that the polychrome corresponds to a later stage, possibly the result of a restoration; this assumption is confirmed by the presence of erasures and craquelure that reveal an earlier polychrome with noticeable flashes of red and ocher. Apparently the gilding corresponds to that done in the eighteenth century, for its decoration with plant motifs, of floral, bulbous types, with elongated stems and leaves with tips stylized by brushstrokes in a gray color that give a lengthening and shadow effect, as well as the scrolls that decorate the spaces in the brown color of the sackcloth.
In the attire we find decorations that are made with thin brushstrokes that mimic a small net or grid, feature which is even more visible in the torso, at the height of the abdomen and in the middle of elliptical spaces of the figure that appear to form a letter m. Similarly, they are found among the bulbous three-petal motifs; in the bottom of the habit; at the end of the leaves that are curved in a slight ellipse; and in the decoration of the upper back.
The sgraffito of the attire corresponds to a light punching, in point form, which gives the appearance of having been chopped; the decoration at times becomes confused sometimes with markings of attacks by moths suffered by the image, most notably in the back and base. However, the use of the punch can be seen on the left sleeve of the habit and the top of the back; possibly the rest of this type of decoration was covered by the aforementioned intervention.
[1]. Franciscan saint, of Italian-French origin, born in Assisi in the thirteenth century founded the mendicant order named Friars Minor, approved by Innocent III. He was canonized by Pope Gregory IX in 1228, two years after his death, becoming one of the most popular saints in Christianity.
[2]. Reau, 2000: 545.
[3]. Where he is represented as a blond, beardless man; model developed between the thirteenth century and the Reformation.
[4]. Product of the Counter-reformation and the Council of Trent.
[5]. Reau, 2000: 547-548.
[6]. Maquivar, 1995: 90.
[7]. Reau, 2000: 548.
[8]. Reau, 2000: 559.
[9]. Reau, 2000: 559-560.
[10]. Sebastian, 1992: 65.
[11]. Maquivar, 1995: 88.
Sources:
Burke, Marcus, Pintura y escultura en Nueva España, Mexico, Azabache, 1998.
Maquivar, Maria del Consuelo, El imaginero novohispano y su obra. Las esculturas de Tepotzotlan, Mexico, INAH, 1995.
______, La escultura religiosa en la Nueva España, Mexico, FCE-Conaculta, 2001.
Reau, Louis, Iconografia del arte cristiano. Iconografia de los santos. De la A a la F, tome 2, vol. 3, Barcelona, Serbal, 2000.
Rodriguez, Isidoro, San Francisco de Asis en la musica y en el arte, Madrid, FUE, 1977.
Sebastian, Santiago, Iconografia e iconologia del arte novohispano, Mexico, Azabache, 1992.
